Cut adjacent/touching shapes with single pass

I have looked through the community section and googled everything I could think of without coming up with an answer.

I’m trying to cut rectangle pieces with words/pictures on them. I am able to score/engrave and cut each piece separately without problems. To save on materials, I would like to “marry” the rectangles together so that they are connected (i.e. right side of rectangle one with left side of rectangle two and both of them connected to the bottom of other rectangles). When I have them touching in inkscape, the laser makes a separate pass to fully cut each rectangle but I would like only a single pass on the areas that are touching. The problem is that it cuts into the previously cut rectangle and takes off additional cut (sometimes ruining the already cut piece by cutting into it) or burns the edge. How can I correct this?

Thanks!

You have to delete one of the overlapping line segments in Inkscape.

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I wrote up a tutorial for this sone time ago. Let’s see if I can find it.

Ah here we go:

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Thanks, I’ll try that

Thank you for the detailed help - and the pictures. I appreciate it.

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Can you just design a version of the file so the designs are properly spaced, then draw one large rectangle to enclose them all, and draw a single line from top to bottom? (If this is a one-off design, then not worth your while; if it’s for frequent use, then this would be how I go.)

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